There is a gigantic force in India – an estimated 2.5 million strong – of men and women who have picked up snatches of medical knowledge from a homeopath or chemist, or from a relative, or from working as a doctor’s assistant, who prefix “Dr” to their name and start treating patients in the remote village where they live, where there is no real doctor for miles. For city dwellers, these self-taught men are quacks, perfect specimens of the truism that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. For the people who provide an invaluable service to rural Indians who have no access to proper health care and probably won’t for a very long time to come.
The Healthcare Federation of India said last March that India was short of two million doctors and four million nurses. It said about 70 percent of the health care infrastructure was concentrated in the top 20 or so cities. That leaves a lot of…
